Lloyd Lewis: ‘My season with Pontypool’

Pre-Season

After suffering an agonizing play-off defeat to Llanelli and missing out on promotion at the end of the 2018/19 season, Pooler were hungrier than ever to secure promotion the following year.

We knew it would be more of a challenge than previous years with four Premiership sides filtering down into the Championship, but a challenge we relished nonetheless. We’d gone three seasons unbeaten and had made some good signings in key positions over the summer; it was an exciting time and we were looking forward to taking the league by the scruff of the neck.

Personally, I was buzzing to start my second season with the club that had been pivotal in reigniting my passion for rugby after a tough couple of seasons.

I’d finished my first season as top try scorer, thoroughly enjoyed the season and was eager to improve further on my individual performances. I was fortunate enough to feature in the Moscow and Poland legs of the Rugby Europe competition with Wales 7s in June and came into pre-season with Pooler on a high.

September

After a tough but enjoyable pre-season, along came September and with it the start of our 2019/20 promotion bid. Convincing wins against Beddau, Swansea, Ystalyfera and newly relegated Neath were a big confidence booster – the new singings had slotted in well and we really showed that we weren’t messing about this year, exemplified in our 59-5 victory over Neath at the Park. I’d scored a couple of tries and had set a target of 20 for the season, but the real challenge now as a squad was to stay focused and maintain our formidable form.

October – December

We continued to grow in the months leading up to Christmas and got into a nice rhythm. It was an exciting time to be a Pontypool player; Tom Hancock had stepped into his new role as backs coach and really got the back’s division firing.

We’d moved away from being a more one dimensional, forward-oriented team and started to cause some real problems out wide. We were putting 50/60 points away against teams and playing some quality rugby.

We all knew, however, that the real challenge was yet to come. We had yet to play Bargoed or Bedwas, two teams we had identified as the biggest threats to our unbeaten run and more importantly, promotion. Our first real challenge was scheduled for the 14^th of December, Pontypool v Bargoed at the Park.

The game against Bargoed was a nail-biter that went right down to the wire. The Pooler Army were out in force and Bargoed brought a load of travelling support, making for a great occasion.

After trailing 6-7 at halftime we managed to seal the win in the 78^th minute when Richard Powell threw a miss pass, sending me under the sticks and bringing the final score to 13-10 in Pooler’s favour. The atmosphere around the Park at the final whistle was definitely something I’ll always remember.

January 2020

Our Christmas break was short-lived as we faced Cross Keys at Pandy Park on the 28^th of December. A 54-3 victory sent us into the New Year and held us in good stead for a busy January in which five games were scheduled; four league games followed by a WRU National Cup quarter-final against the then-Premiership title contenders, Carmarthen Quins.

Three bonus point wins in the league preceded the highly anticipated quarter-final Cup clash; a 62-14 win over Beddau (A), a huge 77-8 win over Ystalyfera (H), and a 54-12 victory at The Gnoll gave us plenty of confidence heading into the cup tie.

Our encounter with Carmarthen Quins in tricky conditions proved to be another nail-biter, with the Quins claiming their place in the semi-final with a try in the fifth minute of injury time.

Nonetheless, we had no time to dwell on the disappointment of our cup defeat as we welcomed Bedwas to the Park the following Friday, marking our first encounter of the season after a previous fixture was re-arranged. With terrible conditions effecting play for both teams, Pooler came out on top of the scrappy encounter with the final score reading 15-12.

February

With only one fixture being played against Pontypool Utd in the Ben Francis Cup, February was a quiet month for Pontypool RFC. Fortunately, I’d been asked to train with Wales 7s ahead of the LA and Vancouver legs of the HSBC 7s World Series and was lucky enough to be selected for the trip.

I really enjoyed my time away with Wales 7s; the HSBC World Sevens Series is an amazing stage to play which allows you to play in front of huge crowds in fantastic venues, against the best sevens players in the world.

Collectively, we didn’t get as many wins as we would’ve liked – the squad’s in a transition period at the moment, with Darren Edwards and Adam Thomas leading the coaching and with a couple of first caps and players like myself and Tom Williams coming back into the mix.

Despite this, I feel we really showed glimpses of the potential we have as a squad, exemplified in our Day 1 Vancouver performance in which we held Olympic Champions, Fiji, to a draw (which could’ve easily gone our way), before going on to secure a big upset over France, sealing the win with the last play of the game.

On a personal level I’d say I’m happy with my individual performances. They weren’t perfect, but it’s always tough stepping back into 7s after some time out; it’s a completely different game to 15s and it’s big a shock to the system initially as you adapt to the speed and intensity of the game.

It was a great feeling coming back into the 7s set-up properly after a couple of seasons away; I managed to cross for a couple of tries and I’m looking forward to hopefully having the opportunity to build and improve on them in the future.

March

I returned to Pontypool at the beginning of March to what I thought would be a promotion run-in. Instead, I was met with the news that the 2019-2020 had been cancelled with immediate effect.

Although the WRU’s decision was absolutely necessary it was still a tough one to take

Promotion has been the goal for everyone at the club for years; from management, to players, volunteers and supporters .

That being said, it’s most definitely not all doom and gloom. We can really take confidence from our performances throughout the season; we remained unbeaten in the league and fought hard to secure wins against some of the Premiership teams that had come down to the Championship.

We’ve had plenty of set-backs as a club before and have bounced back every time

I feel that I speak for everyone at Pooler when I say we’re hungrier now to get back out there and establish ourselves in the Premiership, where we deserve to be.